


Not A Very Subtle Metaphor

by TheseusInTheMaze



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Gratuitous film references, Murder Mystery, Smuggling, Sort Of, Vampires, complicated feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:28:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseusInTheMaze/pseuds/TheseusInTheMaze
Summary: The Doctor runs into an old friend, and some... interesting new foes.
Relationships: The Corsair/Thirteenth Doctor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	Not A Very Subtle Metaphor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FictionPenned](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/gifts).



> I want to thank you, @fictonpenned, because this led me to reread the Corsair's issue like four times and I fell harder for her each rewrite.

The Doctor had never really been one for pubs. 

Which was not to say that she didn't like them - far from it! There was a lot of fun that could be had in a pub, even beyond the usual standards of wine, woman and song. She'd won some bets in pubs, she'd started countless adventures in pubs, she'd had quiet nights in reading... entirely wholesome and relaxing, all things considered.

This pub did not seem to be good for any of those sorts of things, or any of the numerous other fun things one could get up to in a pub. The windows were shuttered, and there was only a single, blinking neon "open" sign in the window. The "o" wasn't working, and the "pen" blinked at the Doctor balefully as she made her way towards it.

_I don't think this place has a football team_ , the Doctor thought, as she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her coat and rocked on her heels. 

The whole of the city had a gloomy, forlorn feel to it - almost like something out of a gothic novel, although there were a bit too many signs of industrialization to really capture the Hammer Horror vibe. It was also eerily quiet. 

"More cyberpunk," the Doctor said aloud, more to fill the air with some kind of noise than to impart any insight. It was all oppressively quiet, apart from the distant rumble of a passing car. If she hadn't known better, she might have thought that it was some kind of sound dampener around the city, but no. Everyone was just that... cowed. "Although you'd need more neon, I think. Neo-revival cyberpunk?" 

The building, of course, didn't answer. Neither did the sad looking trees, or the blank windows of the high rises surrounding her. 

"Right," the Doctor said, her tone firm. She wasn't sure what, exactly, was giving her the creeps, but something was making all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. 

Unlike other people, though, she tended to run _towards_ that feeling, if only to find out why she was having it in the first place. Made life interesting, at any rate!

The Doctor squared up her shoulders and walked into the squat, sooty building.

-*-

The bar was dimly lit, and the people in it hunched over their drinks. This had been a human colony, a few hundred years ago, and everyone was more or less standard human looking - low on fur, two arms, two legs, with a few variations here and there. Everyone looked as if they'd been put through the wash a few too many times - skin lacked any luster, clothes looked faintly threadbare. The man behind the counter had a sullen expression, and he just raised an eyebrow at her when she sat at the bar.

With her rainbows and blue coat, she stood out like a Smarty on an extra cheese pizza. 

Mmm, Smarties and pizza. That was always a favorite. She'd have to have that, at some point. 

"Any chance you have any food here?" Her voice was very loud, in the small space. 

The bartender grunted. The Doctor wasn't sure if that was a "yes" or a "no," but they squinted at the faded chalkboard over the man's shoulder.

"Oo, pizza! I'll take a pizza, please!" She dug around in her pockets, came out with a crumpled assortment of notes and coins that she usually had rattling around in there. She took a note at random, and she held it out to him.

He looked at it, then took it wordlessly, and made his way into the back. 

"Not very busy, then," the Doctor said aloud, and the quiet of the place seemed to suck it in, like ink on a blotting paper. "Well," she said, and she turned to the nearest person, a woman in a shapeless grey boiler suit, "what's something fun to do around here."

The woman looked at her blankly, and the Doctor tried not to recoil. It was almost as if the woman was looking _through_ her, and that was... unsettling. She was used to getting a lot of looks from people, but being almost ignored entirely - that was _entirely_ out of the ordinary, especially for a place like this. 

"Can't be as bad as all that," the Doctor said weakly, and the woman's eyebrow twitched. Then she looked down at her drink again, and didn't respond to any more attempts at conversation.

It turned out that the woman who had rebuffed any conversation whatsoever was the most friendly. She saw the occasional eye dart towards her, but otherwise... nothing. 

The thing that was dropped in front of her on a plate was probably, technically a pizza, if only because why would someone cover a hockey puck in what looked like ketchup and a smattering of... what was that, dried glue? 

The Doctor prodded the thing in front of her. It was lukewarm on the edges, frozen solid in the center. She looked over at the bartender, who was blankly staring down into a glass, and then she licked her lips, and took a dutiful bite of it, more for the look of it than because she wanted to. She'd never been one for... politeness, per se, but the weirdness was setting her on edge. She didn't spit it out, but she would have, back when she was still wearing bow ties and gangled.

Then again, back when she had white hair and a penchant for sunglasses, she'd have shrugged her shoulders and eaten the rest of it, because she'd been able to eat _anything_ without complaint back then. 

"When were the last time you got a proper sunny day around here?" The Doctor asked the bartender.

She was ignored. 

The Doctor sighed, drummed her fingers on the top of the bar, staring at her own reflection in the dirty mirror behind the bar. 

The door opened behind her, and she got a brief glimpse of the outside. There was the sound of boots on the scuffed up lino, and then a cleared throat. "Well," said a familiar voice, "this is almost as bad as the student bar back at the Academy."

The Doctor turned around, resting her elbows on the bar, and her whole face was spreading into a broad grin. "Hullo, you," she said, and she stood up.

"Wouldn't expect to see you in a place like this," said the Corsair, and she held her arms open wide for the Doctor. 

The Doctor walked into the hug, and even hugged her back. All that time in jail had made her surprisingly skin hungry, and Yaz was still... prickly, and besides, it might be sending mixed signals, to be going around offering hugs when she'd been so hands off for so long.

But the Corsair squeezed her tight, and the Doctor squeezed her back, taking in the scent of whatever she used on her hair, the warmth of her skin, the beating of two hearts against her own. She pressed her face into the Corsair's neck, and her shoulders were only shaking a _little_ when the Corsair let go of her. 

"This doesn't seem like the sort of place you'd be, either," the Doctor countered, taking a step back and looking around them. The people on the edges hadn't even looked up. "Not nearly enough excitement." 

"Life can't be all excitement," the Corsair said, her face dead serious. Then the facade cracked, and she threw her head back, laughing. Her hair cascaded down her back, and the lacy sleeves of her shirt fell back, revealing pale forearms. The Doctor caught sight of the tattoo on the inside of her wrist, the snake eating its own tail, and she tried to ignore the way her stomach twisted at the sight. 

The little glowing box was still in the guts of her TARDIS, sitting on its shelf. It didn't shout in the voice that was speaking to the Doctor right then, and she took some comfort in that. 

"So what _are_ you doing here?" The Corsair's arm was slung around the Doctor's shoulders, and the Doctor let herself be led towards the door of the dreary little pub. "Another want ad?" 

She was guessing, of course. If the Corsair could recognize her now, as she was, then they'd probably already dealt with the Hoarder. Unless she was miscalculating something, which was also a slight possibility, but she'd deal with that when she had to.

"Oh, you know me," said the Corsair, her tone airy. "Always looking for some new adventure." She opened the door, and she indicated for the Doctor to step through.

The Doctor walked out into the night, and she looked around at the guttering streetlights and everything seemed to be wavering a bit, just at the edges of the Doctor's vision. 

"So another want ad," the Doctor said, and she was grinning. The Corsair had let go of her, and she tried to ignore the little pang of regret at that. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her coat, and she followed after the Corsair as the other woman began to walk down the street. Her boots were very loud on the pavement in the quiet of the empty street. 

“That’s not very nice,” the Corsair scolded. “Must you always be so judgemental? We can’t all run around the universe being sanctimonious.” 

"I am not sanctimonious!" The Doctor squawked, and then she closed her mouth with a click, because her voice seemed to echo through the canyon of all the tall buildings. Then that was swallowed up by the quiet as well.

"You give speeches about how people need to be good to each other and how horrible guns are," the Corsair said. She didn't seem to be thinking about her responses - she was just saying them, so that they wouldn't be swallowed by the great silence looming over them, like a cliff face about to collapse. 

The Doctor didn't have a response to that. The two Time Lords had both stopped walking. They were holding hands now, fingers laced together, and the Doctor took more comfort than she wanted to admit from the double pulse against her own. 

They were being watched. The prickle of eyes across her made the Doctor's skin crawl, as if a colony of ants was slowly making its way up her back, along her neck.

"Have you ever been to the forests on Tohueva'vowho?" The Doctor's voice was very quiet. 

"Not in a long time, no," said the Corsair. Her voice was low. 

"There are things there," said the Doctor, "that eat sound. They'll track you down like a cat on a mouse and they'll gobble up the sound of your heart and the rumble of your guts." 

"That was downright poetic," said the Corsair. 

"I've always been poetic," said the Doctor. 

They were standing under a streetlight, a little island of dingy yellow in all the grey, and it made the shadows of the Corsair's face eerie and deep. 

"I don't think anything is eating the sounds," the Corsair said slowly, "but..." Another pause, and she cocked her head to the side. 

The Doctor did as well, trying to pick out _any_ sounds. She could make out the faint sounds from the bar - chairs scraping, glasses being set on flat surfaces, a door opening occasionally. There were other very quiet sounds from the buildings, of people presumably doing their day to day living things, but it was all... muffled. 

Cities - even late at night, or in the midst of a snow storm - made noise. _People_ made noise, whether they were Time Lords, humans, Venusians, or... well, anything. Things that lived inhabited a space, and they made the space their own with music and laughter and arguments and conversation. It was as if every living thing in the whole area was doing its best to take up as little space as possible, to skulk around unnoticed like a bullied school child. The silence was oppressive, and the Doctor was straining her ears, trying to find anything to break it. 

Maybe that was why she heard the _thud_. In a proper city, it would have been covered by... well, anything, really, but in this uncomfortable stillness, it was like a gunshot going off. 

The two of them were off running before the Doctor's brain had a chance to catch up, and when they found the source of the sound, there was something like panic welling up in the very back of her mind, because the _wrongness_ of the whole place was starting to get to her. Every instinct in her body was shouting at her to run to the TARDIS, to run and run until she was as far from this place as she could get.

Which meant she had to stay. 

The Corsair's hand was very warm in her own, and very solid. Not as warm as a human hand, and not as sweaty, and when was the last time she'd held a Time Lord's hand? 

In the between two faceless industrial buildings, there was a collection of empty bins and a dead body. It had to be a dead body, because living bodies didn't lie that still. There was a splash of gore across the wall, and it looked black in the grey light. 

There was movement, and then the two of them were racing down the alley together, and their footsteps echoed, the figure in front of them had huge ears that were pressed to the head, and they twitched at every echoing footstep.

_Interesting._

They reached a dead end, and the Doctor let go of the Corsair's hand, cupping her hands over her mouth and shouting. "Oi! You!"

The ears of the creature flattened down even more, and it made a pained noise. 

There was a silken, metallic sound, and the Doctor could just make out the shining point of the Corsair's rapier. 

"Is it _really_ a good idea to be waving that around, when we can barely see?" The Doctor hissed. 

"I can see fine," the Corsair countered. 

The Doctor squinted, and the person they were staring at turned to stare at them. The eyes were wide and the ears were huge and bat like. There wasn't a nose to speak of, and there was something rodent-like about the mouth. They drew their lips back and _hissed_ , and the Doctor wrinkled her nose, baring her own teeth. 

"It isn't particularly friendly to rip people's throats out like that," the Doctor said. The person was wearing what looked like a purple cloak, the purple so deep it was almost black. They were bald as an egg, and the shiny top of their head seemed to reflect the little bits of light slinking into the alley from the sidewalk. 

"You're from the ruling class, aren't you?" The Corsair asked. She was holding her rapier steady, but there was something about her body language that made it hard for the Doctor to concentrate on the monster in front of her.

_Is she guilty? What would she be guilty about? I didn't think that she could feel guilt in the first place._ The Doctor kept her eyes on the person in front of her, as a connection was made. _Wait. Why would she ask that?_

The person they were facing off against snarled like something out of nature documentary, and then they _jumped_ , a full twenty feet in the air, and grabbed a nearby fire escape. They climbed up in a series of thumps and bangs, and then they were belting across the roofs, the light sound of their footsteps fading off into the distance. 

"Well," the Corsair said, and she sounded very tired, "at least that answers that question."

"What question?" The Doctor's eyes narrowed. 

"C'mon," said the Corsair, not answering the _Doctor's_ question, and she sheathed her sword. "Let's see if we can see to that poor sod back there."

"We should do that," the Doctor agreed, "but I still want answers."

The Corsair sighed. "I know you do," she said, "but we should deal with this first, yeah?"

The Doctor resisted the urge to rub her temples. She made her way back, one ear cocked for the sound of the monster coming back towards her, and she began to piece together the beginnings of an idea as to what, exactly, was going on.

-*-

The Doctor couldn't find any identifying information on the corpse. No wallet, no wedding ring, not even a picture of someone, or a work ID tag. They had been drained of blood and a few other things, but it didn't look like anything from any hemovore that the Doctor had seen before. It was a ripping, tearing sort of bite - no wonder there had been so much blood on the walls. It wasn't exactly an efficient way of getting blood, was it? 

The Doctor collected tissue samples from the bite, ever grateful for the voluminous pockets of her coat and that she'd refilled her sample kit. 

"We can analyze these in my TARDIS," the Doctor said, and she sighed, and used one hand to close the corpse's eyes.

"It might not be a good idea to go to your TARDIS," said the Corsair. "You have humans there, right?"

"Not at this moment, no," said the Doctor, and she wasn't going to talk about that right now. 

The Corsair looked at her sidelong, one eyebrow up, and the Doctor flushed, looking down at her hands. None of the gore had gotten on her, thankfully, but she would probably need to wash the hem of her coat. It had probably dragged through who even knew what.

Back when she'd worn that scarf, she was forever washing the ends. 

When she remembered to, at least. 

"Why no humans?" The Corsair made to lean against the alley wall, seemed to realize that it was coated in who even knew what, and settled on keeping her arms crossed. 

The Doctor's jaw clenched, and she stood up, dusting her knees off. She carefully placed her sample kit in her pocket. "I can't really think of what to do with the body," she said, frowning. "D'you think we could go to the pub, see if there's anyone who'd be willing to help?"

"I doubt any of that crew would do anything," the Corsair said, and she sighed. "The streets are clean enough that there's waste removal," she added. "So it'll be taken care of eventually."

The Doctor glared at the Corsair. 

"What?" The Corsair held both hands up defensively. "That thing may be out there killing someone else, or... who even knows." Her expression went hard to read, and the Doctor frowned. Something was going on here that she was missing, and if she could just have a chance to _think_ , away from all of this oppressive atmosphere, she might be able to do it. 

"We can't just... leave a body out," the Doctor said, and her voice was rising in pitch. 

There was a sound from above, and they both looked up. There were more wide, glittering eyes staring down at them, light reflecting off of bald heads.

"I think," the Corsair said, her voice much lower, "we should probably head to my TARDIS."

"Mine is closer," the Doctor said.

"You don't know that," the Corsair said. "You don't know where I'm parked."

"I'd have noticed a giant pirate ship," the Doctor countered. The eyes above them weren't moving, weren't _blinking_ , and the Corsair was inching towards her. 

"My chameleon circuit is in use," the Corsair said. "Just because _yours_ doesn't work."

"I could make it work if I wanted to," the Doctor said, but she wasn't really thinking as she said it, just letting her mouth run.

The Corsair grabbed her hand, and then the two of them were off running again. The Doctor couldn't hear the things that had been up on the roof, but she couldn't shake the feel that they were still _there_ , right on the edge of her mind. 

There was a dull little shed in one corner, and the Corsair skidded into it, pulled the Doctor in after her. She slammed the door shut, and she leaned back against it, her chest heaving.

She looked faintly spooked, and that was a new one for the Doctor. But there were other things to worry about, just then.

"Start talking," she told the Corsair, hands on her hips.

The Corsair made her way down one corridor in her TARDIS. "It's complicated," she told the Doctor, not looking over her shoulder.

The Doctor hurried after her. The Corsair's TARDIS still managed to have a vague... nautical feel to it. The Doctor's TARDIS always had a background hum to it, and this one did as well, but there was an almost choppy feel to it, as if it were bobbing up and down on the waves.

The Corsair _had_ always been a sucker for a theme. 

"Well, we've got time, technically. Since we're in a TARDIS." The windows along the long corridor were round, and each one looked out onto a different scene. "So how is it complicated? What do you have to do with all of this?"

"I..." The Corsair opened a door, and the Doctor followed after her as she trooped in. "I made a mistake," she said at last.

"Did you?" The Doctor's tone was surprisingly even. She was almost shocked at herself for being so calm, because a cold rage was slowly making its way up from her stomach, freezing her solid. 

"I was contracted to steal some Lucara fruit," said the Corsair, and she turned the light on. They were in a small, cramped room, with high lab tables and a shelf full of bottles of different sorts of solutions. 

"Lucara fruit," the Doctor repeated, and she frowned. "From the -"

"Parc'thians, yes," the Corsair said. "For a planet that's got one of those cultures that is all about showing off how rich you are. Didn't ancient humans used to eat sow's udders and songbird tongues? That same basic idea." 

The Doctor nodded. She had her arms crossed across her chest, and was looking at the Corsair expectantly.

"I'll need the sample," said the Corsair said. "I'm almost positive I know what it is, but I want to be entirely sure."

"What is it?" The Doctor took the sample kit out of her pocket, but she held on to it. 

"It's a parasite," said the Corsair. "At least... that's what I saw happen before."

The Doctor frowned harder. "So you knew this fruit was infected with a parasite, but you still sold it to these people?" After all that business with the Star Whale, she expected better of the Corsair than this. But that was her problem, wasn't it? Always expecting better of people, even when she shouldn't have.

The bright little box was still sitting in the Doctor's cupboard, and she didn't want to think about that right now. She didn't want to think about this beautiful, lovely person being eaten alive and partitioned out like clothes at a jumble sale. 

Her hearts ached, and she carefully schooled her expressions in calmness, rocking on her heels. 

"I didn't sell it to these people," said the Corsair, and now her expression went... sad. "I sold it to different people, and then they all... changed." She threw her hands up in the air, looking annoyed. "I had myself parked on a nice planet, was getting on with the locals, and then they all started losing their hair, their ears got longer, their teeth got more..."

"Orlok," the Doctor suggested. 

"Orlok?" The Corsair frowned.

"Character in an old Earth movie," said the Doctor. "I were an extra in it," she added, because she could never resist the urge to give a little bit of a brag. "Had half a ton of makeup on for it, too."

"So," the Corsair continued, pointedly ignoring what the Doctor had been saying, "I did some research, and it turns out the reason why they don't sell it is _because_ of the parasites. It has some kind of special interaction with their gut flora, and they can do a special distillation to make a liqueur that's honestly delicious, but it costs more money than you can think about." The Corsair ran her fingers through her hair, clearly flustered, and the Doctor took it all in.

She hadn't thought the Corsair could get flustered.

"So let me guess," the Doctor said. "You weren't aware that this was the problem, and so you thought they were just trying to make a lot of money, and saw a way to make money yourself?"

"Exactly," said the Corsair.

"And then you sold it to that lot?" The Doctor indicated over her shoulder with one thumb. 

" _No_ ," the Corsair said. She made a gesturing motion with one had for the sample kit. "I _think_ I know how we can get rid of the parasite, but it may kill the host while we do so."

The Doctor sighed, and she nodded, and handed over the sample kit. "What is it?" 

"There's a holy spring on Parc'thia," said the Corsair, and now she was setting the sample kit on the lab table and going to rummage through the cabinets. "It's got a special mineral compound in it that kills the parasite." 

The Doctor could feel her face trying to smile. "So holy water," she said. "We're going to defeat the Orlok with holy water. I don't suppose they're vulnerable to sunlight and garlic as well?"

"I haven't tried those," the Corsair retorted. "But... because I was able to steal it, my employer decided to cut out the middleman and got them themselves. And sold them here." The Corsair looked annoyed. "Also sent some hired killers after me, which was _very_ impolite, and I'm going to have a word with them about that, when I've finished here." 

"I see," said the Doctor. "And now you're trying to fix your mistake?"

"I'm trying to fix my mistake," the Corsair agreed. "Since..." She cleared her throat, and she took the glass container off of the shelf. "Since it's my fault. They wouldn't have been able to steal the fruit, if it weren't for me."

"Right," said the Doctor. "That's good of you."

"You don't need to sound so surprised," the Corsair said, and she sighed. "It may take a while to synthesize the , but the TARDIS can do it." She set the whole lot of it on the lab table, and she sighed again. "You don't have to stick around," she added, giving the Doctor a pointed look. "Especially if you're going to stand around looking disapproving at me. I can get my TARDIS to drop you off by yours, so you don't even have to deal with that lot."

"Nah," the Doctor said, after a moment. She took her coat off, draping it across a nearby chair. "I'll help you."

"You don't need to do that," the Corsair said. She'd rolled her sleeves up, and the Doctor could see the familiar tattoo on one arm.

"I'd be happy to," the Doctor said, not looking at the tattoo. "Many hands make light work. Won't be the first time I've made a vermifuge, even. And at least time the vampires aren't fish, which is always a bonus." She was mostly just talking to talk, and she suspected that the Corsair could tell. 

Still. 

The Corsair raised an eyebrow, but she was smiling, her eyes crinkling at the sides. She handed the Doctor a pipette, and the Doctor rolled her own sleeves up. 

-*-

The vermifuge was being synthesized en masse, and the Doctor had gone off to go wash all of the mineral vapor out of her hair. She wandered about the place, and she tried to keep the sadness at the back of her mind. She knew that the TARDIS knew its own future - every TARDIS did. From what she understood from conversations with her own (... sort of), they saw themselves as standing still, and the whole of time and space moving around them.

But it was hard not to be sad, walking through this place with its golden light and the sound of the waves in the distance, and remembering the cabinet full of glowing, shouting boxes.

The kitchen was small, and the tile was a disarming yellow and white pattern that hurt the eyes. The Corsair’s hair seemed to shout against the light colors, and something about the contrast made the Doctor’s hearts beat a little faster.

“You know,” the Doctor said, making her way inside, “staring at the kettle won’t make it boil any faster.

The Corsair looked over her shoulder at the Doctor. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she said. “Not used to having other people around here.”

“You should get some companions,” said the Doctor. “Might keep you out of these kinds of scrapes, at least.”

The Corsair sighed, and she ran her fingers through her hair, tucked a piece behind one ear. “This is at least partially your fault,” she told the Doctor.

“How is it _my_ fault?” The Doctor was indignant. There were _many_ things that she could be blamed for - some she’d even take credit for! But this wasn't one of them.

“I’m sure, if we dig down deep enough, we’ll find something,” the Corsair said, and she sounded tired. “I didn’t used to… care so much. About fixing things, about doing better.” She made an expansive hand gesture. But… I saw what happened to the Master. How he went crazy, and then I saw what you were doing, and I saw what the rest of our people were like and...” She trailed off.

The Doctor stepped closer, and she tentatively took the Corsair’s hand in her own, threading their fingers together. “I think that you’re nowhere near as bad as the Master,” she said quietly. “And… I think it’s good. To try to do good, to try to help people, however you can.”

She very pointedly wasn’t thinking about House, about Uncle and Auntie and the dim light. She held the Corsair’s hand in her own, and she concentrated on the beating of their two hearts.

“It’ll be exciting, sorting it out,” said the Corsair. “Going in, getting rid of the parasites, starting a revolution of some sort, no doubt…” Their fingers were laced together, and the Corsair’s thumb was passing over the back of the Doctor’s hand. She had callouses, from handling her rapier. “And that will be my favorite part. The adventure.”

“You always did appreciate a good adventure,” the Doctor agreed.

“But this part… I’m not used to the before part. The pre-adventure guilt.” She heaved a gusty sigh, and the Doctor impulsively pressed closer, until they were shoulder to shoulder. 

“Tell you what,” said the Doctor, injecting some cheer into her voice. “How about, while we wait, I can show you a film? There’s a reason I’ve been calling ‘em Orloks, y’know.”

The Corsair looked sidelong at the Doctor. “This feels like you trying to trick me into one of your weird Earth cultural things,” she told the Doctor.

“It might be,” said the Doctor, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy it.”

Instead of a snappy reply, the Corsair squeezed the Doctor’s hand. “It better have a good fight scene, at least,” she said instead. 

_Someday, you’ll be dead,_ the Doctor thought, gazing into the Corsair’s face. _You’ll be dead and a younger version of me will mourn you. But just now, you are alive and I am alive, and we are going to fight a great evil, and I don’t know if there is anything else we can ask for._

“I’ll see what I can manage,” she told the Corsair, and pressed a quick peck to the Corsair's mouth.

The Corsair kissed her back. “All I can ask for, I suppose,” she said, and really, what more could the Doctor ask for?

The future would happen in all its pain and glory, the past had happened, but now… now was here, and she would savor it.


End file.
